Some cops have gotten the wrong
message, and are sending the wrong message. Turning your back on Mayor de Blasio
is childish and negative, and rather than helping your cause, it does the
opposite. Every time a cop turns his back on the mayor, the police force gets
politicized.
“It's not political, it's personal”?
No, it's personal when someone gets killed, for them and their loved ones. It
was personal when Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were killed. It was
also personal for Eric Garner's loved ones. It's okay for the communities to be
torn up about it and to demand justice. In the case of Officers Ramos and Liu,
innocent policemen just doing their job, the assailant was a crazy person who
blew his brains out. In the case of Eric Garner, an innocent, unarmed man, the assailant
was a policeman, and there was no trial. That's a problem.
Did rhetoric drive Ismaaiyl
Brinsley to kill the cops? No. There is a great wave of antipathy toward the
police, especially in the black community, which no doubt fed this troubled
man's motivation. That anger came from an unnecessary death of a man by
chokehold, not anything anybody said.
De Blasio didn't back you the way
you want? Do you think it was a mistake for him to try to find commonality and
empathy during a time of great outrage? The mayor has a black son. Was he not
supposed to talk about this? I think it was an excellent time to connect with a
furious New York. If he'd been Rudy Guiliani (who backs de Blasio in this
dispute, although he also blames Obama for the police officer's deaths, so fuck
him) and gone all "Hey, police gotta do what police gotta do," there
would have been a riot. People would have torn shit up.
Did you notice something about the
protests over Eric Garner's death? People did not tear shit up. Kudos to the mayor
for that, and kudos to Reverend Al Sharpton and the other protest organizers as
well. Thank you, New Yorkers, for maintaining a sense of community, even when
you think your community provides you no justice. The cops who turned their
backs on their mayor spurn that community.
When two cops were killed, it was
an ugly climax to a horrible story. Universal condemnation of the crime and support
for the police poured forth from all quarters. A black person must see this and
wonder why the major news networks didn't and don't show the same support for
them when they're down. An innocent man is killed, there's no follow-up, and
the response is "Be a better father" and "Stop getting
pregnant." Does the black community have problems? No doubt. Do those
problems have anything to do with Eric Garner's death? Hell no. Is a policeman’s
death more important than a black man's death? Only in the media.
Still, when those cops were killed,
people came together. Shrines were built on the street and online. The mayor
(with his "friend" Andrew Cuomo jumping on his lines earlier that
morning) called for a "pause" in protests, aka a stop, forever, at
least until the next time someone gets killed for no reason. The only good that
could have come of this senseless killing would have been to let the community
come together.
Instead, Patrolman's Benevolent
Association president Patrick Lynch saw it as a time to take potshots at de
Blasio. He described blood on the hands that "starts on the steps of city
hall in the office of the mayor." I'm sorry, saying you've had to coach
your son on how to interact with cops is not tantamount to calling for police
executions. Also, can we all clean up our metaphors? Are there handprints all
up the steps? Is de Blasio a circus tumbler, walking on his Macbethianly
blood-soaked hands all over city hall?
When cops pile on to that nonsense by
turning their backs, they send a message not of unity but of political
divisiveness. They do this not just at a time of national mourning, when people
are supposed to come together, but also at a time of black pain. Eric Garner is
still dead, at the hand of cops. This is no time to get self-righteous. It's
not your turn at the outrage game. Every time you turn your back, you say that
Eric Garner's death, and the other deaths of black men and children at the hand
of police, is not as important as these cops’ deaths. What's more, you're also
saying that the deaths of Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu aren't as important as
the fact that you're mad at the mayor. That you can't maintain decorum at a
funeral.
It's shameful and it's ridiculous.
You're public servants, with a job to do and a relationship with the public that
still needs to be greatly improved. Turn back around.
--Dan Kilian
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